~Conversations In The Small Hours Of The Morning~
-Part Two-
They sat on the floor lulled by the spell of the fire and drink. Finding reasons without reasons for touch. Orange golden flame played in the shadow and dark, casting Sherlock in an otherworldly light that belonged to him.
The evening had been long and satisfying. Roving and devouring. The silence between them thick yet comfortable with the unspoken. Each quietly trying to figure out how this was possible, how the person sitting across from them had managed to be. Each touch a need greater then the last no matter how many times they found each other.
"How are you so fuckin perfect?" John's tone was a mix of passion and wonder his slightly drunk curse heavy with the sounds of his ancient Gaelic tongue.
"There's no such thing as perfection John. Perfection is, broadly, a state of completeness and flawlessness. Nothing, lest of all me, is without its flaws."
"Oh not true. Your mind is flawless." John watched Sherlock closely and saw his cheeks begin to bloom and wrinkle in the lovely sweet smile that followed every compliment.
"I'll agree, I have my moments." Sherlock's voice pitched low and John could feel the deep resonance of Sherlock's words in his very bones. The hunger that never strayed far, began to uncoil low and smoldering in John.
"I've seen you naked. Tasted your flesh. Fuck all if you're not perfection." The "F" rolling long and pronounced by John's Scottish brogue.
"Such language John. It's...profane." Sherlock admonished in mock indignation adding that wicked smile that always led them both astray.
"But you blush up so pretty at the sound of a well placed fuck." John puncuhated the word. "The posh boy likes vulgarity." John teased. He loved to tease. "Not in yourself. Oh no, of course not. But in me." John cocked an eyebrow.
"I think I'd rather like other things in you as well." Sherlock paused, giving John a hot focused look, his baritone laden with sex. "I want you."
"You have me." John's answer was immediate and wholehearted.
"Differently."
The one word was telling.
"You want to fuck me." John smirked a crooked smile.
"Crude." Sherlock's eyes boarder into him. John could practically see Sherlock's filthy thoughts.
"You like it." John challenged.
"True. On both counts." Sherlock tossed his head and looked at John sideways. Waiting.
"Mmm. If...I let you fuck me...there will be..." John paused searching for the right words. "Commitments. Binding commitments." His Gaelic heavier still.
"And will these commitments be...permanent?" Sherlock was too far gone to shy away from the implications of his question.
"I can only hope." John held back nothing. And to be honest there was no question in John's mind that he would hold back any part of himself physical or emotional from Sherlock. Giving himself to someone never really happened to John. He was almost always expected to be in a place of dominance. But giving Sherlock all of what was already his? Well that seemed only natural.
"Permanent commitments. Mmm." Sherlock raised an eyebrow and asked softly a hint of worry creeping into his voice. "John are you a virgin?"
John literally fell over with a hoot of laughter sprawled snorting on the floor in tears clutching his stomach. Sherlock watched confused and concerned. Winded and hiccuping John tried to compose himself wiping tears from his eyes. "No love I am not a virgin. Far from it in fact." John tried not to let laughter trickle back in.
"So then why the need for commitments? Wait...you don't like it. No not true. You.."
"Stop. You're half right. It's not what I enjoy most. But I do like it, just with the right person."
"And that's me?" Sherlock was a bit sheepish in his question.
"You beautiful fool. Yes. A thousand times yes. And the desire for commitments has nothing to do with the sex and everything to do with me wanting to have you all to myself for as long as you'll let me. This just seemed like a very enjoyable means to an ends."
Sherlock gave this some thought. Sex was most certainly an age old tool, hell he'd been known to use it as such himself, but this wasn't that. No. Not really. This was surrender. Not just for John, but for Sherlock as well. John was willing to give himself to gain Sherlock. Sherlock had to ask himself was he willing to do the same? Surrender?
"I agree to your terms." Apparently yes.
"Was this your vision of us all those months ago?" John was curious.
"Absolutely not. Lovers are usually an experiment in some way or a distraction from boardum. Not...this." Sherlock gestured with his glass at the surroundings.
"So I'm assuming I was a distraction?"
"Never. You were and are, an attraction. Very are rare."
"Is that all?" John felt an unexpected stab at the thought.
Sherlock studied John, he was made golden by the fire stunning almost regal. Sherlock was always so fascinated by the way this man made him think and feel. "No my Gaelic king, that is not all."
"Is that what you call me in that beautiful head of yours."
"Among other things."
"I don't think you would appreciate what I call you."
"I already know what you call me." Sherlock was all cheeky confidence.
"Bollocks."
"I do." Sherlock's voice was a little shrill.
"Pove it then."
"Sexy." Sherlock shot back the word triumphantly.
"Easy." John rolled his eyes and tisked in disappointment.
"Gorgeous."
"Proves you've got a mirror." John huffed.
"English rose."
"Wrong." Now it was John's turn to be triumphant.
"Oh really. What then? Posh boy? Pretty boy?" Sherlock made airy hand gestures. John laughed.
"Both are perfect disrciptions, and both are wrong. From the first time you looked at me with that other worldly blue green gold eyes of yours...I've been hopelessly falling. Stunningly prepossessing that's what you are. And that's what I call you in my head. Now can we stop talking?" John sat his drink down and leaned in.
"We never have to speak again." Sherlock met him, and was devoured in a hungry hard pressed kiss that quickly sat them on a path with only one destination. They rise to their knees to better get rid of the barrier of clothing.
"Then how will we communicate?" John's voice was gruff and matched the biting kisses that mark every inch of Sherlock's newly exposed flesh.
Sherlock tilts his head back inviting more, all. "Non...non..." Sherlock's words catch in his throat and he struggles with with brain function as John's path leads him from one hard nipple then the next swiping his tongue over and over.
John removes his mouth and says the word. "Nonverbal love. Nonverbal." This is said as John presses Sherlock closer and firmly rubs his cock through the rich fabric of his trousers.
Trousers that are suddenly in the way, Sherlock immediately begins to shed them rocking and pulling awkwardly on his knees finally exposing long limbs and long cock that John doesn't hesitate to kiss and slid into his mouth. This wins John a satisfying jack of Sherlock's whole body, so he swallows him again and again in a fevered rhythm, Sherlock's thighs quiver and give out, landing him on his back under a hungry predator. John practically rips off his own clothing.
He stands over Sherlock feet planted either side of his hips admiring the man spread out on the floor. Sherlock arches up and runs his hands from John's ankles, up the calf's, around the front of his thighs just short of being able to reach his cock. The action is too much to bare. John squats down taking Sherlock in his mouth again sucking hard leaving Sherlock's cock wet with saliva and precum. John quickly alines himself with the head of Sherlock's shaft and takes him slowly into his heat.
"Fuck Sherlock." John allows his body to adjust and revels in the fullness. Push and slide. Slowly deeper.
Sherlock wanted to watch, wanted see the expression on John's face catalog every nuance. But he couldn't Stars are busting behind his eyelids and he raps out a repatriation of, "John oh God John John fuck yes John oh god yes."
John's control was no better lost to the heart pounding up and down on Sherlock's cock, edging closer so quickly towards the boiling prostate orgasm. John encircled Sherlock's throat with one hand, the other hand guided Sherlock's hand to John's painfully rock hard dick. John rocked on Sherlock's shaft no longer up and down but grinding and jutting his hips back and forth his cock slinging in Sherlock's clenched fist.
It's all too much. Sherlock can't breathe, he digs harsh fingertips into John's thigh he trimbales and cries out as the stars behind his eyes seem to travel his whole body centering in his cock in an explosion of blinding white swirls around him. He hears his name being called breathless and desperate from a far off distance.
"Sherlo...fuck...Sherlock." John's whole world shatters as he cums in Sherlock's grip loads of white hot cum jerk from John's cock covering Sherlock as the prostate orgasm erupts within him with heart stopping rapture.
The come down is impossibly slow and for a split second John is gazing up at a dark hair angel who morphs into his Sherlock.
"Hello." They smile at each other.
"That was..." John props up on his elbows.
"Binding." Sherlock finishes for him.
"I was thinking something along the lines of unbelievable, but yours works too."
On the third day...
"Hello J."
"Hello Mercy." Her voice was uncharacteristically heavy the two simple words saying more then they should. "What is it?"
"How do you know it's anything?"
"Twins remember, now out with it." John tickled the toes that had been resting in his lap making the owner start and smile up at him, John dropped a kiss on Sherlock's forehead and began wandering about the room.
"You're to leave day after tomorrow. Deep cover."
Deep cover. The words fell like rocks in the pit of his stomach. Undercover opts meant long stretches in the field which in the past had been merely part of the job. John had enjoyed slipping into a new skin becoming who he needed to be to get the job done. Now the thought of shedding who he was in this moment was physically painful. Johns chest felt full of lead. He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"What else?" His voice was strained and it was the last thing Sherlock heard before John left the room.
"Drug trafficking in the Golden Triangle. You'll have a deep cover partner." Mercy's silence was too long.
"Stop trying to spare me Mercy. Who is it?" John could hear her suck in a deep breath before she rushed into the words.
Mercy was accustomed to delivering news of dangerous orders for sketchy locations with nefarious people, it was kind of her thing and she did it with just the right mix of tact and humor to make it acceptable. What wasn't her thing was giving her brother information that would hurt him or throw him off his game. And if ever Mercy had seen a game changer Sherlock Holmes was it. John was the best. But love supersedes all in even the best of us.
"Sebastian Moran. He was chosen for this particular opt because he speaks..."
"Hindi. I know. Fuck." John had done his due diligence on Moran. He had been a solider, a rather good one in fact and now he was God only knew what and lover to a psychopath. What else Moran was John wasn't sure but all of Johns training told him that Moran and his Magpie lover where not friends of the crown. Therefore not friends of his. The only solace was the fact that the most dangerous half of the criminally insane duo would be with John and not somewhere prowling around Sherlock. . "How long?"
"J." Mercy's voice was pained. "Six months. Maybe more. We've had Moran on the inside for a month now, you'll work the opposite end of the supply line and we'll get them in a pincer move."
John could hardly pull in a breath. "Why so long?"
"It's a large optiration. And two years ago the Americans botched the opt and now the sellers skittish. J, never once in all our years have you questioned a mission. You have loved this job every step of the way. I think it's time to take a closer look at what you love now."
John had known the speech was unavoidable, and that ever bit of it was true. Twins and all.
"Thank you Mercy."
John stepped into the cool Berlin night air, totally obvious to the old world beauty in front of him. Beauty was behind him, sitting quietly waiting just for him. But he couldn't expect him to wait six months, most likely more. It was too much to ask of a new...relationship? Was that what this was? The past three days had been unlike any in John's history. But just because it was beautiful and alien and familiar all at once didn't make it a full fledged relationship. Did it? In the end it was all just semantics to John. He loved Sherlock, plain and simple. Fuck. So now what? The job was the job, just as it had always been. The problem was he wasn't the same man. How could he be after...
"Sherlock."
John had never been *in* love. The closest he'd come was Holly, in uni. A tall statuesque beauty with jet black hair aqua blue eyes and skin like cream. (He had always had a type.) Their relationship had been...calm. Normal. Dull. Holy was easy on the eyes and pleasant enough, so John had asked he out. Three years later John found himself ignoring the nagging voice in his head that told him time and time again that this was not his life. But despite his doubts he had began the long and arduous trudge down the road toward domesticity and supposed material bliss. For three years John endured empty conversations with Holly and her equally empty friends, predictable dates and marginally enjoyable sex.
"The girl is a succubus John!" Mercy had been emphatic, she always was on the subject of John's future. "Don't be jealous when I'm a super spy for MI5 and you're stuck living in Hampstead with your fat wife and five fat babies and you're gray and balding from stress or boredom."
John had laughed hardly at his sister that day. A week later when Mercy had actually started at MI5, he wasn't laughing anymore. The choice had been easy from there. A life time of mind numbing normalcy or "super spy" as Mercy had put it. Holy had protested hotly, and John couldn't help but think maybe if she had shown some of that fire in the past he wouldn't be packing his things and heading to parts unknown. John had left that life that and woman behind without a second thought. The years that followed where dangerous and exciting, love had never been on his radar. Sex on the other hand, had. Every place John traveled he sampled their wares, both male and female. In later years refining his taste to male only. But still not even a whisper of a relationship. Until now. The now that was Sherlock. Cool and aloff like the moon, brilliant and mezereising like the stars. John had thought Sherlock would turn out to be a fling that would burn hot and fast, only to cool and eventually go out like all the rest. Oh how wrong he had been. John had realized early on that Sherlock was something incredible. The intensity of what they had was like power itself. Nothing comepared. It felt like they were the center of the known universe and all else could fall away. So to say John was in love, was an injustice.
Sherlock wanted to give John his privacy he really did but he'd known the call was from Mercy which could only mean one thing. A job. Where now? Sherlock thought, hell itself? Sherlock sprang up from the sofa and began to pace the room occasionally casting glances towards the master suite. He wanted to run to John throw his arms around him and just stay until time ran out...
Needless to say, Sherlock had never been in love. He'd never even come close. The thought of losing his heart to someone had never even entered his mind, because for Sherlock sex and love were in no way related. Sex was a distraction that could sometimes be used as a means to an end. Love was dangerous period. He tried the boyfriend thing in uni. (Hell he'd even tried the girlfriend thing, which he had found out exceedingly quickly was most certainly not his area.) It had all ended badly, leaving Sherlock with scars both visible and emotional. When Mycroft had found him in his dorm room one weekend with a nasty head wound in a pool of his own blood, he had raged at Sherlock for getting sentimental and letting this happen.
"This is so like you. Getting involved. Getting hurt."
"It's merely a gash in the scalp, a lot of bleeding, but not as horrific as you make it out to be."
"I'm not talking about the head wound Sherlock!" Mycroft had been nearly incoherent in his anger.
The young man who'd hurt Sherlock in so many ways was supposedly shipped off to a different school somewhere in Wales. Sherlock was never able to find a record of him. From then on he'd kept his distance with his lovers not that he'd been in any danger of falling for one of them, his lovers had at best been no more then tolerable and none had made any type of lasting impression. John Watson had changed the game entirely. John was the sun. Brilliant and powerful and necessary for life. He made Sherlock's analytical mind work in poetic ways produced a well spring of emotion Sherlock hadn't known himself capable of. Lust that distracted and consumed coupled with a beautiful heartache. Yes. John was the Sun. John was beyond Sherlock's dreams. Sherlock's dreams? Hell a dreams as grand as John had never even occurred to Sherlock. Now he found himself practically quoting Shakespeare and seriously contemplating a tattoo. Dangerous. Period.
Sherlock walked up behind John and snaked his arms around John's waist, Sherlock rested his chin on John's shoulder and breathed in the warm sent of his neck oaky and male mixed with the cool night air.
"You're going away."
"Mmm." John nodded slightly in agreement not trusting himself with words.
Sherlock frowned and he choked a bit when he spoke again.
"For..a..a long while." Sherlock's internal monologue filled to bursting with screaming objections, but for once he kept quite. Not because his better angles had finally won out, no, because the indescribable heartache was swallowing his abliy to speak. Love was as cruel as it was exulted. Sherlock longed to cover John in words of love, but why? They knew. Had known for some time now. There was no need for the soul crushing pain the words would bring.
"The Golden Tringle. Six months, longer maybe, I never really know."
"Six months really isn't that long." 'It's an eternity!' Sherlock screamed to the rafters in every room of his mind palace.
"Sherlock...deep cover opts are...complicated." John took Sherlock hands from around his waist and stepped out of his embrace turning to face him. "The things I have to do...the person I need to become. Look...I don't expect anything from you." John held Sherlock's hands grazing his thumbs over promante knuckles.
"But you most certainly should John. Wasn't it you who said the commitments were binding?"
"I did." John smiled taking Sherlock's meaning.
"Well then you should expect much indeed." Sherlock advance winding his arms back in place and smothered his face in John's neck.
John let his hands travel Sherlock's narrow waist feeling the warmth of the sinewy muscles of his back move under his touch he ran his hands down to the small of his back up to his shoulder blades and then retraced his hands along the path they had taken. John sighed and pulled away again, this time out of arms reach. Sherlock looked bemused.
"You don't understand. This isn't about us...well it is...it's completely about us isn't it...opts like this...this long require a certain amount of believe ability...sometimes...shit...all the time..."
"You'll need to have sex with people."
"Yes. I will. And now there's you and..."
"I knew who and what you where with every step that I persuaded you." Sherlock shrugged resigned to what was.
"You know that this," John stepped in close and put his hand over Sherlock heart. "what we are isn't that? That you're more then that to me? Everything in fact. Nothing about us was ever part of the job."
"The body is merely transport John. Or at lest it was. But I understand the need. Just..be safe. And come back to me. Nothing else is important."
"Fair enough."
They stayed on the balcony in silence. Sherlock on the verge of the blurting out a string of words full of uncharted feelings and John silently cursing the universe for all its capricious nature.